Thagaste

Thagaste was a Roman-Berber city in northern Algeria, now called Souk Akhras. It was originally a small Numidian village inhabited by a Berber tribe into which Augustine of Hippo was born in 354. Its mounts were used as a natural citadel by its inhabitants, and, during Roman rule, trade in the city increased, especially under Septimius Severus. It was settled by a few Roman Italian immigrants, but was mainly inhabited by Romanized Berbers. The Byzantines fortified the city with walls, but it fell to the Umayyad Caliphate at the end of the seventh century. French colonists would later rebuild the abandoned city as Souk Akhras.